Did you know?

Protein, fats and carbohydrates are converted into energy in different quantities. Vitamins and minerals are also essential nutrients for the body, but they are not converted into energy.

Energy Content

1 gram of protein

17 kJ

1 gram of fat

37 kJ

1 gram of carbohydrates

17 kJ

1 gram of dietary fibre

8 kJ

1 gram of alcohol

29 kJ

Alcohol - second only to fat!

Did you know alcohol has many more kilojoules than other types of foods? On this list, alcohol has the second highest energy content per gram - second only to fat!

How is food energy calculated?

You may be familiar with the Nutrition Information Panel that appears on almost all packaged food in Australia.

Example:

How do they come up with the Energy figure in the Nutrition Information Panel (above)?

They took the amount per serve of protein, fat, carbohydrate and dietary fibre and multiplied each by the energy provided by each of these nutrients (see side panel to right). Last step, add each of these figures to get the total energy in the serving.

Therefore, the total energy of one serving of the food is calculated by adding together the energy provided by the protein, total fat, carbohydrate and dietary fibre.